Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

PM Lee apparently said the following in an interview with Retuers about the level of disclosure of assets GIC is willing to tolerate:

“We do not want to tell people exactly how much we have, so people can take a run on the Singapore dollar.”

Well, uncertainty is indeed a good strategy to fend off speculators. Couple that with a money pact with an oil kingdom, Brunei, it would almost be crazy for anyone to even think of trying a run on the Singapore dollar.

Just as currency speculators are clueless as to how much money the Singapore government has, Singapore citizens are just about as clueless. Of course, the average Singaporean (myself included) does not need the information to go about our daily lives so not knowing the information really doesn’t make much of a difference.

However, for all we know, we could really be engaging in a game of bluff and there is no problem now because no one dares to call the bluff. I hope no one tries to, though. It would be devastating if it was really a bluff all along.

(3 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5)

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If Mas Selamat has been following the news (assuming that he is still in Singapore), he must be laughing to death at the level of embarassment and troubles he has caused to the government. I think the problem with the escape of Mas Selamat, at least for now, is not so much of a possible terrorist attack but rather, how far up the hierarchy should blame go?

There are two parallel lines of argument. The first one, favoured by many netizens, is that heads of officials connected to the escape of Mas Selamat should roll, whether they are directly involved or otherwise. Even if you are high up in the hierachy and not directly involved, you still have to go because like it or not, the escape happened under your watch and you are ultimately responsible.

The second argument, favoured by the government, is that only the heads of those who are directly involved should roll. The logic here is that it is unfair to punish someone for something that is not within his or her direct control. DPM Wong did not have direct control over the Gurkha guards. If he did, then of course he has to go. But since he didn’t, we should be fair to him and not blame him at all.

Each argument fundamentally works on a different set of assumptions, so it is difficult to argue one in favour of another. However, as Gerald rightly pointed out, most of the work done by a minister are actually that of the civil servants under him. Favouring the second argument means that any Singaporean minister will have an iron rice bowl (make that a diamond rice bowl: it’s the hardest substance around and it’s damn expensive) because he/she will never be directly responsible for most of the things happening under his watch. As long as a minister does not succumb to corruption or engage in behaviour defined as unacceptable by society or the ruling political party, the job is basically secured for life.

Either way, we have a problem. It’s either we create a culture of aversion to mistakes or we create a modern day nobility. We have to choose between a rock and a hard place. And, the choice has been made for all of us.

(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)

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The release of results of the inquiry into the Mas Selamat fiasco has resulted in renewed calls for accountability (note: this generally reads as the sacking of DPM Wong Kan Seng) by Singaporean netizens. PM Lee Hsien Loong has come out to defend Wong Kan Seng, saying that Singaporeans should not slip into a “witch-hunting mode”.

I find it interesting that PM Lee chooses to use the term “witch-hunt”. Putting on my critical media scholar hat, I think PM Lee is trying to frame the discussion to his benefit. By choosing to use the term “witch-hunt”, PM Lee is essentially throwing in a smoke grenade to obscure the differences between accountability and witch-hunt, probably hoping to equate the two so that he can turn the spotlight away from the issue of accountability.

Having said that, I do think that PM Lee has a point too. I mean, how far up the chain of command should the blame be laid? Some time back, a soldier escaped from his army camp with a rifle. Should the chief of army, chief of defence force and the minister be sacked for that? Or should the transport minister be sacked for the Nicoll Highway incident? It’s a tough call for PM Lee on whether he should sack a minister who is not directly responsible.

Besides, it would be counter-productive to sack an obviously talented person over a mistake he/she is not directly responsible for. There is more value to the organization in keeping such people. Of course, whether DPM Wong is of such a pedigree is open to debate.

PM Lee also said that we have to be careful of breeding a culture where people are afraid to make mistakes. That point is well-taken. I think we need to leave some allowance for honest mistakes. However, then question would be why are the guards considered to be negligent instead of making an honest mistake? Why are mistakes for some people tolerated, but not others?

I guess there are no straightforward answers. I personally would like to see something more substantial than an apology, although resignation is not necessary. Maybe a big pay cut? Or maybe a demotion to Minister of State?

(4 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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I just read the online media release of a proposal by a group of 15 bloggers recommending sweeping changes to the way the Internet is regulated. The media release can be found on The Online Citizen.

I’m not part of the group (I am going to dub them G15 from now), although I was aware of the initiative. I commend the G15 for investing their personal time and effort into putting together the document. It looks like it’s going to be a great piece of work, although I don’t think that the recommendations will offer anything groundbreaking but rather, the recommendations are likely to sum up all the key thoughts and arguments in the Singaporean socio-political blogosphere on Internet regulation.

The next step is, of course, so what? Can we truly expect the government to implement most of the proposals? Wearing my pragmatic hat, I would imagine that the government will, at most, acknowledge the paper but say that it is too early to implement these proposals. Of course, this is a vast improvement compared to the past. If this initiative happened 30-40 years ago, the G15 would have to do prison break, Mas Selamat style.

While I don’t think there’s much chance of a major shift in policy as a result of the document, I do think that it would help bolster the G15’s case if the proposal is endorsed by as many netizens as possible. As it stands now, if I were the government, I would contend that the G15 is hardly representative of the online population and then proceed to ignore it. It would be much harder to question the legitimacy of the proposal if there were some 50,000 to 100,000 Singaporean netizens endorsing it.

Of course, it is going to be difficult to even get 1,000 netizens to endorse the proposal, let alone 100,000. I think that majority of the blogs in Singapore fall into the personal journaling category and these folks, having little opportunities to run afoul of any regulations, are unlikely to lend their support to the proposal. However, I think every single endorsement counts. I will read the full proposal when it is released and it is very likely that I will endorse that proposal.

The heartening thing about this proposal is that it is a genuine grassroots initiative and not the result of some committee mandated by the government. Of course, there are going to be some people who are sore at not being “invited” to give their opinions and they will claim that the G15 is an elitist group. In fact, reading the comments thread on the media release on The Online Citizen, it looks like these folks are going to start questioning the legitimacy of the proposal.

To these folks, please, get out of my elite uncaring face. Stop being so damn full of yourselves.

(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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The American and Israeli government are now upset that former US president Jimmy Carter has “embraced” Hamas.

A paragraph from the Associated Press’ report read:

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Carter’s meeting with Hamas “dignified” a group committed to Israel’s destruction. “One cannot but wonder how this attitude is supposed to promote peace and understanding,” he said.

Well, I cannot help but wonder how the attitude of the Washington and Israeli hawks would fare any better. Will isolating a “terrorist” group solve the problem? I think that Jimmy Carter is right in reaching out to Hamas. If there is no talk, people will just construct their own ideas about the “other”, leading to misunderstandings and sustained conflict. It’s far better to get people to thrash things out by talking.

Of course, the issues surrounding Israel and Palestine are complex and I’m don’t have clear solutions to the problem. However, I do think that the Americans and Israelis should reconsider their policy of isolating Hamas. It is more prudent to talk to Hamas and understand them.

If the Americans and Israelis don’t even want to talk to Hamas, they won’t understand why Hamas behaves the way it is behaving now. It is perhaps much more convenient to label Hamas as a terrorist group because the military can then be sent in to “clean up” the problem. The Washington hawks seem to love the idea of a military solution to everything.

However, this will only make Hamas appear even more legitimate in the eyes of Palestinians because Hamas can easily employ the rhetoric of being the real defenders of the Palestinian leaders. By not talking to Hamas, the Americans and Israelis are just weakening the domestic support for the Fatah party, which is obviously not the desired outcome.

I’ve read reports that Hamas actually does alot of humanitarian work in Palestine and they are popular with ordinary Palestinian folks as compared to Fatah, which has been viewed as a corrupt organization. Of course, I am painfully aware of the violence that Hamas perpetuates and I most certainly do not condone that. However, I do think that people (especially the neocons) should try and understand why Hamas is resorting to violence. Are they resorting to violence because they like wanton destruction, or is it because they have no other recourse against groups that are much more powerful?

Seriously, the Americans and Israelis should stop vilifying Hamas. They are no saints themselves.

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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I just have to get it off my chest. I almost crashed my car 30 minutes ago because a idiot/moron/imbecile/bonehead/dimwit ran across the AYE. Here’s what happened.

I always get on the AYE in the morning via the Pioneer Road North exit to get to NUS. This morning was no different.

I exited the roundabout underneath the flyover to get on the slip road that leads onto the expressway. There was a Mercedes cab in front of me. As the slip road is quite long, by the time you enter the leftmost lane of the expressway, you usually would have accelerated to about 70 km/h or even more.

I kept a distance of about 3-4 times the length of my car from the taxi in front. I saw that the taxi was reaching the end of the slip road and was going to merge into the leftmost lane of the expressway so I looked to my right to check if it was safe to merge into the expressway as I would be reaching the end of the sliproad in a matter of seconds.

When I looked back, I realised that the taxi in front of me was grinding to a halt and I was less than 2 car lengths behind at a speed of about 70km/h. I jammed the brakes but it was obvious I wouldn’t be able to stop in time so I swerved to the right, narrowly missing the taxi. Thankfully, there were no cars in the leftmost lane of the expressway (I had already checked earlier and I knew there were no cars but I am still thankful because if there were cars, I couldn’t avoid crashing the car at all).

After bringing my vehicle to a stop, I looked to my left to see what happened and guess what? There was a man who was walking on the road shoulder towards the expressway exit. My wife, who was freaked out, said later that she saw the taxi driver gesturing somewhat obscenely at that man. I guess what probably happened was that dude ran across the expressway.

Honestly, jaywalking an expressway? You got to be kidding. It’s bad enough to jaywalk across a major road such as Orchard Road but jaywalking an expressway takes the cake. That man seriously has balls of steel (and a heart of iron too). And nevermind the fact that he has the guts to jaywalk an dual-carriage expressway of 3 lanes each. It is damn bloody inconsiderate to do that because he can (and he almost did) cause an accident.

I still can’t believe that someone actually jaywalked an expressway during morning peak hour traffic.

(1 votes, average: 1 out of 5)

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It looks like the MDA is not going to intervene in football pay TV issue, claiming that free market is the way to go.

Well, I’m not sure what is MDA’s idea of a free market. As it stands now, whoever gets the exclusive rights to show matches from a particular football league basically becomes a monopoly until the rights expire. I’m no economist but my understand of a free market is that buyers are not coerced in any manner by sellers and what is happening now doesn’t seem like a free market to me but well, I could be wrong.

Well, if you don’t want to pay the high prices, TVU is a possible alternative.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I just saw a piece of interesting news.

Reuters just carried a story that UBS has reported a first quarter loss of 12 billion Swiss francs and are seeking fresh capital injections through a rights issue.

Almost four months ago, GIC made news for injecting 11 billion Swiss francs into UBS, giving GIC a stake of almost 9 percent in UBS.

Looks like many Singaporeans are not going to be pleased, to say the very least.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I’ve not updated in a while because of the usual end of semester madness. I’m unlikely to do much of an update in the next month and a half. There are a number of things I want to write about but I just have to KIV them for the time being.

I was asked by the Sunday Times to comment on about the Barack Obama fever. The article can be accessed here.

I’m growing more convinced that Obama is a leader unlike no other. Just check out his speech on race (a transcript of his speech is available on the New York Times). That was a moving speech without pretense. He could have played it safe but he took such a touchy issue head on. And, he dealt with the issue with great honesty and sincerity.

He’s clearly more than just another politician. He’s a leader.

(6 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)

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It seems like Singaporeans might be allowed to hold outdoor protests and demonstrations at the Speaker’s Corner (see this article).

Of course, this being Singapore, the fine print has to be read. Buried down the article, it is said that there is a “need to maintain certain fundamentals even as society opens up more”, and I would like to highlight the third “fundamental” which reads:

“Third: There should be no foreign interference in domestic politics. “

So, what constitutes foreign interference? A bunch of singers apparently constitute foreign interference. An academic speaking about gay legislation is also foreign interference. But, our Minister Mentor is famous for commenting on other countries. For example, a couple of years back, he infuriated our northern neighbours with comments about their ethnic minorities.

Can we practise what we preach, please?

(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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